10/10/2014

Mexico protests gather pace after student teachers go missing

Thousands demonstrate in cities over disappearance of 43 student teachers who went missing after police arrested them

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have blocked roads across Mexico in protest at the disappearance of 43 student teachers from the southern state of Guerrero, with many of them going missing after being arrested by police.

“They took them alive. We want them alive,” demonstrators chanted as they marched through the centre of Mexico City, nearly two weeks after the students disappeared in the city of Iguala about 120 miles south of the capital.

Relatives of the missing students led the march. They walked, mostly in silence, beside a banner with photographs of the disappeared, greeted by chants of “you are not alone” from onlookers lining the streets.

Protesters also included contingents from universities and colleges around the capital as well as teachers, union members, activists and empathetic citizens.

Police said around 15,000 people participated in the march in the capital. Thousands more joined a protest in Chilpancingo, Guerrero’s state capital, which included a temporary blockade of the main highway linking Mexico City to Acapulco.

According to Milenio TV the day of action also included protests in 19 more of Mexico’s 32 states, as well as in nine other countries, including a group gathered outside the Mexican embassy in London.

The wave of indignation triggered by the missing students comes amid government claims that the rampant violence and institutional collapse in parts of the country, associated with the drug wars of recent years, is being brought under control.